County honors CIF athletes, supports local hospital MOU, and DA gets more room

EL CENTRO – The County Supervisors passed three resolutions honoring the 2013-14 CIF San Diego Section Championships of the Brawley Union High School Wrestlers, the CIF San Diego Section Wrestling Champions from Holtville High School wrestlers, and the CIF San Diego Section Championship of the Central Union High School girls basketball players.

The CUHS Spartan Girls basketball team defeated La Jolla High School to win the championship. The first time since 1971, and overcame a 10-point deficit to accomplish the victory.

The Holtville Vikings placed 13 wrestlers in the semi-finals with 9 of those wrestlers continuing to the finals where 3 Viking wrestlers won individual championships.

Brawley was honored for their CIF win at Olympian High, which made 14 straight CIF titles in a row, the most winningest high school athletic team in the history of California CIF.

MOU FOR 2 VALLEY HOSPITALS

In other business, the board approved a letter of support of the 90 day MOU between Pioneers Memorial Hospital and El Centro Regional Medical Center.

The MOU identifies representatives for each hospital that will work together in establishing a process and timeline to evaluate and negotiate a potential affiliation transaction.

The ultimate objective of the transaction would be a continued high quality health care to the greater Imperial Valley community.

The hospitals’ representatives plan on meeting on a weekly basis to share strategic objectives with the ultimate goal of sharing appropriate resources to provide the best patient care available, according to the MOU.

ILLEGAL DUMPING

The board also moved to approve applications for grant money to help farmers cleanup illegally disposed wastes on their property by unknown persons.

The funds are limited to $50,000 per illegal disposal site and $200,000 per jurisdiction each year.

The Public Health Department is currently seeking to apply for a cleanup grant in the amount of $115,000 to clean up two illegal disposal sites in the unincorporated county, and reimburse a farm property owner for one site that has already been mitigated.

According to Robin Hodgkin, Director of Public Works, illegal dumping of solid waste continues to be a problem in Imperial County, especially the rural area where the majority of dumping occurs.

DA’S OFFICE TO GET MORE OFFICE SPACE

The County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to approve a $31,012 allocation for the construction of four new offices in the district attorney’s

District attorney, Gilbert Otero, said that his office currently does not have enough offices for attorneys and management staff.

According to the DA’s office, they are in need of offices for the attorney and investigator assigned to the special Victims Unit as well as the attorney assigned to handle juvenile cases,

The attorney assigned to handle juvenile cases has historically been located at the Imperial County Probation Department because the juvenile courtroom was located at the Probations Department. The juvenile courtroom has now been moved to the main Imperial County Courthouse.

The attorney assigned to these cases also handles adult felony cases, therefore it is more feasible to have the attorney located closer to the main courthouse, according to Otero.

The funds issued will not have an adverse affect on the General Fund as all expenditures will be covered by the Criminal Justice Facility Funds.